Month: March 2021

A senior European diplomat is urging caution over the use of proposed new rules that would govern exports of Covid-19 vaccines to outside of the EU. The rules were announced by the European Commission earlier Wednesday. The tougher export controls put forward by the Commission would see vaccine shipments assessed based on the destination country's rate of vaccinations and vaccine exports. In a briefing to journalists, the diplomat said the EU and European countries need to, “be careful with the very the nuclear option of a pure export prohibition.” And if not used correctly in, “appropriate situations, it will backfire.” “We speak as – I would say – a pharma superpower, we have a huge concentration of pharmacological companies on our territory,” whose presence, “counts for several percent...

An investigation is underway after a tweet that raised questions about Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine went viral. A Mississippi native and assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University turned to Twitter after her father tried to schedule a vaccine appointment. Dr. Elizabeth Wayne claims the Mississippi State Department of Health told her father "there is no documented proof that the Moderna vaccine works. Would you still like to take the vaccine?"Wayne went on to tweet MSDH saying, "Telling people that there is no documented proof that the Moderna vaccine works — when they are calling to get the vaccine is violence."State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs responded to Wayne, saying, "The vaccine showed 94.1% efficacy at preventing COVID-19 illness, including severe disease." Dobbs said...

The New York Times A Hospital Encounters Vaccine Hesitation: 'I'm Just Not Rushing' NEW YORK — When it was the Rev. Al Sharpton’s turn to get inoculated against COVID-19 last month, he did so on camera at NYC Health + Hospitals/Harlem — a city institution well known for providing health care to the Black community. Sharpton was trying to send a message to his community: The vaccine is safe and effective. But that message was aimed at the hospital’s staff, too. At one point, the facility’s staff had the lowest vaccination rate among hospitals in the city. Even after steady improvement, as of mid-March, the hospital still had a rate well below the average for hospitals in the state. Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times In New York state, African Americans make up about...

Researchers at Michigan Medicine say they found an association between the flu shot and fewer, less severe coronavirus cases. The study, which reviewed medical charts for more than 27,000 patients, also found that nobody included in the data tested positive for both viruses at the same time. "It is possible that patients who receive their flu vaccine are also people who are practicing more social distancing and following CDC guidelines," Marion Hofmann Bowman, M.D., senior author and associate professor of internal medicine and a cardiologist at the Michigan Medicine Frankel Cardiovascular Center, said in a news release. "However, it is also plausible that there could be a direct biological effect of the flu vaccine on the immune system relevant for the fight against SARS-CoV-2 virus."...